Environment

This season on Homer Grown, with the assistance of the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism, we are exploring rural agriculture throughout the state. For this episode we travel to Nome.

Finding opportunities to get out in the winter and socialize can be challenging, especially for families. But Homer’s Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies is trying to remedy that.

As the COVID-19 pandemic brought life to a virtual standstill in 2020, Patrick Simpson dedicated his newfound spare time to apply for funding to develop a novel plastic-to-lumber recycling project.

Low birth rates are likely contributing to the decline in the population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet, according to a study published this week.

In this episode we visit the Native village of Tyonek, and talk to Tonya Kaloa, programs coordinator for Tyonek Tribal Conservation District.Support for Homer Grown comes from Wagon Wheel Garden and Pet and Woda Botanicals.

Unseasonable weather has cut Alaska’s hay harvest in half and sent the price of feed soaring, making it difficult for both farmers livestock producers who already were struggling with high fuel and fertilizer prices. State and federal experts are advising Alaska farmers to expect continued unusual weather, and they’ve scheduled workshops next month to help farmers plan for the new normal.

Millions of tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year. On the Kenai Peninsula, one man is trying to change that by giving plastic waste a useful second life.

Everything under your feet is connected with a near-infinite mycelial web. What’s the connection between microbes, chemical warfare and synthetic fertilizer, you ask?“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.” ~ Goethe

The constant barrage of rain has come at the chagrin of a lot of Alaskans in Southcentral this summer. But Jenni Trissel, of Kachemak Naturals in Homer, said it’s been awesome for Alaskans harvesting berries and mushrooms.

A new five-year plan from the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional Office lays out institutional values and goals for Alaska fisheries and for working with their many stakeholders. The plan was published in early September. In an opening letter, Regional Administrator Jon Kurland reminds readers that Alaska fisheries produce more than half of the seafood caught in U.S. waters and contribute more than $7 billion to the national economy.